Real estate industry

Long live the high street

Article Abstract:

Planning laws, in the UK, which had tried to limit the amount of high street shops moving to retail developments on the outskirts of towns have been unnecessary. Fashion shops are very important to high street developments yet in out-of-town centres they only account for 26% of the floorspace, with 97% of the retail parks not having any fashion shops in their developments. Initially out-of-towns sites were developed, in the 1980s, to cater for shops which required bigger showrooms. High street stores have only taken 11% of the available floorspace in out-of-town developments.

The investment market in the 1990s

Article Abstract:

UK shopping centres attracted total investment of around 5,320 million pounds sterling in the period 1991-1996, or an average of around 25 million pounds sterling per shopping centre. During the period, more than 4.18 million sq mt of shopping centre floorspace was transacted, or around 35% of total available shopping centre floorspace. It is likely that ownership of shopping centres will increasingly move away from institutions and towards property companies, while the number of shopping centre transactions will remain at a relatively high level.

How to improve financial returns

Article Abstract:

Many property owners in the shopping centre sector are now considering how they can improve returns from their existing assets. They are adopting a more direct style of management, especially against a background of a decline in new shopping centre development and a lack of retail expansion. It has now become necessary to undertake a wide-reaching analysis of the present and future trading performance of the shopping centre.